Here in Vancouvber, Canada our meeting ran over-time. No bomb-threats, no hysterical jihadis storming the citidel, no cause for law suits over spilt coffee. It could have been a disaster. In fact it nearly was a disaster: I went to the store where I buy my clothes, I asked the clerk for a blue scarf, and I got a blank stare in return. Normal enough, but they didn't have any blue scarves either. I am a Blue Revolutionary at this time, and nothing can stop me. I ran home, found an old jumper, and cut a swath through it till I could swear it looked just like the scarf I would have bought anyway. My only concern was the colour, whether it was blue, green or some other shade I can't quite distinguish. I sat with a girl I know, chatted her up till she mentioned that I had people looking at me across the room. Yes, we have made contact. Yes, we're going to do it again.

There is no burning issue here in Vancouver, Canada, not something so immediate that all people are frantic for a solution or at least a crowd to shout to. And yet, there we were at the People's Temple, at McDonalds. We did not meet the numbers of our friends at the rally in Paris. Not yet. We did meet well into over-time, and we will meet again. We will grow and we will make a difference. Here are a couple of letters from others, and I'll update anything else that comes in as it comes.

At 8:27 PM, Jauhara said...

Sacre Bleu! Vive la révolution bleue...où puis-je joindre? Pardon my French, but this gives me hope! Go France!

At 9:32 PM, t-ham said...

I sat, for 2 hours, resplendent in my new blue scarf, in a McDonalds 35 miles from 9/11's Ground Zero, a place where, on that day, you could have climbed any of the hills that rise up here along the Hudson River and watched the Towers burn and crumble as I did, a place where everyone lost a family member or friend or knows someone who did.

No one came.

Other obligations? Insufficient notice? Lousy time of day? Apathy? Fear?

Maybe I counted too much on the blogs. Maybe I overestimated how many of us reading and commenting. Maybe we just seem like many. Maybe, 'round here, I am one of the Tiny Majority Who Have Hijacked the...what?

This will take some thinking. This is going to take some planning. They should have come. I am a stubborn son of a bitch, and now they have gone and pissed me off.
I'm not going away.

Here in Vancouver we found friends willing to make the effort. We'll do more. So will others. The French will carry on, and so will we. We can change the world doing this. Unlike our Muslim cousins, we can do good things.